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Time for Parliament to conduct a full review of GPL

Feb 08, 2012 Letters

 

 

Dear Editor,
GPL made a profit of $553 million in 2010 based on what GPL claims was an average price for fuel at US $78 or GY $15,600 per barrel. GPL’s 2010 spending on fuel was $16.5 billion. Based on these numbers, GPL purchased 1,057,692 barrels of oil in 2010. GPL stated that demand for fuel increased by 6.8% from 2009 to 2010.
Customers increased from 2010 to 2011 by only 3.83%. Applying this rate of increased demand from 2010 to 2011, it would mean that a 6.8% increase in demand for power would lead to an increase in required barrels of oil from 1,057,692 to 1,126,442 barrels of oil in 2011.
Average world fuel prices in 2011 were around US $87.50 or GY $17,500 per barrel. $17,500 multiplied by 1,126,442 barrels of oil equals $19.712 million. This figure does not correspond with the $22.4 billion figure that Chairman of GPL, Winston Brassington, claimed GPL spent on fuel in 2011.
There is a $2.688 billion discrepancy that Brassington has not properly explained to the Guyanese people. $22.4 billion is supposed to buy 1,280,000 barrels of oil at 2011 world prices, not the approximately 1,126,442 barrels of oil the GPL likely purchased in 2011. Unless 153,000 barrels of oil went missing, that $2.688 billion shortfall has to be explained by the GPL.
In my opinion, the mounting losses of the GPL lie in a combination of mismanagement, inability to tackle technical and commercial losses, waste and arguably the biggest culprit of them all, the stunningly handsome compensation packages this failed corporation continues to pay itself , while it continues to suck on the suffering public purse, seeking bailouts at every turn, while trying to raise electricity rates on the Guyanese nation.
I have been saying for a while now that GPL employees and its top brass have been living like King Croesuses over the past few years.
GPL paid each employee roughly $2,636,223 (US $13,181) in 2010. It is no surprise Brassington did not reveal how much GPL paid its staff in 2011 and its projected employment cost in 2012. This is a corporation that delivers shoddy service and blackouts on a regular basis to the Guyanese people and somehow wants to charge them even more for its gross failures while paying itself like emperors.
Blaming fuel prices for their inadequate performances will not cut it. Cutting off poor people and forcing many to steal electricity in this nation will not cut it. The time is up for the charlatans posing as business executives at the Guyana Power and Light Corporation.
It is time for APNU and the AFC to use their Parliamentary majority to launch a full enquiry into this GPL mess. Imagine the other bunch in the PPP strangling this nation with a hush-hush shady US $840 million and counting hydropower deal wants to have this group of failures at GPL handle electricity generated from its Amaila Falls white elephant.
This is a truly inefficient corporation that has failed to fix its many blemishes ranging from incompetence to mismanagement to wanton waste. Technical losses continue to bleed vital revenues from the corporation.
The response from the enriched working at the GPL is to seek to impose more tariff increases for their blatant incompetence and outlandish failures. It does not matter how much power Amaila produces, it will be too costly and in the hands of this inept cabal it will continue to saddle us with more tariff increases.
APNU and AFC, bring these so-called managers from GPL into Parliament to answer some serious questions.
M. Maxwell

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